Dog owners will face fines for not conforming to new regulations. / Yonhap

By Jung Min-hoYou could be fined up to 500,000 won ($470) for not leashing your dog in public. If your dog is one of eight government-designated "dangerous types," it should be muzzled; otherwise, you could be fined up to 3 million won.

These are among the rules that are set to come into force on March 22, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Sunday.

"Infographics about the rules will be distributed to district offices across the country by the end of next week," Song Ji-sook, a ministry PR official, told The Korea Times.

The leash for any dog should not be longer than two meters. A fine for first-time violators will be 100,000 won; 200,000 won for second time and 500,000 won for third time.

The eight "dangerous dog types" are tosa, pit bull terrier, rottweiler, mastiff, laika, ovtcharka, kangal and wolfdog.Dogs must also have identification tags when outside and dog owners must clean up feces or be fined.

With a promised reward of 20 percent of the fine for every case, many "paparazzi," a term used in Korea for people who go after "report and reward" schemes, are expected to go into action with cameras.

"Some of the rules are not new, but they have not been enforced strictly so far due to a lack of rule supervisors," Song said.

The ministry has also been discussing whether muzzle rule should be applied more broadly. One idea is to apply the rule to all dogs that stand more than 40cm from ground to shoulder.

The ministry said it will collect more opinions on this idea before pushing ahead with revising the current animal protection law.